WADSWORTH

Edward Wadsworth was born in BRADFORD, Yorkshire, and so like HULME, was another NORTHERNER in LEWIS's group. His style is similar to LEWIS, and he is perhaps only second to BOMBERG in his brave and bold use of FORM and SPACE. He painted WARSHIPS in the war.

I don't mean he painted pictures of ships, I mean he PAINTED WARSHIPS. His masterpieces of DAZZLE CAMOUFLAGE are the first recorded large-scale applications of modern art before the television & internet age.

What is Dazzle Camouflage?

Dazzle camouflage, as its name IMPLIES, is a means of executing a bold contrasting, two or three colour paint scheme to a large flat plane (for example, the SIDE of a WARSHIP) and render the outline fuzzy and confusing to the human eye when viewed from a distance. The idea was that the enemy could not see them. However, if the ENEMY spotted the ship, all is not lost. They would be CONFUSED by the dazzle camouflage and think that the SHIP is closer or further AWAY due to the artistic employment of MODERN ART.

This would cause the ENEMY GUNNERS to incorrectly set their range, MISS, and thereby cause BRITAIN to win the WAR.

In this respect, Wadsworth was very PATRIOTIC.